diff --git a/frappe/utils/xlsxutils.py b/frappe/utils/xlsxutils.py
index d4c4727299..c9ce1867f2 100644
--- a/frappe/utils/xlsxutils.py
+++ b/frappe/utils/xlsxutils.py
@@ -29,6 +29,10 @@ def make_xlsx(data, sheet_name, wb=None):
 				value = handle_html(item)
 			else:
 				value = item
+
+			if isinstance(value, basestring):
+				value = value.encode('unicode_escape').decode('utf-8')
+
 			clean_row.append(value)
 
 		ws.append(clean_row)